


Next Door

by panicky_pancakes



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gay Newsies, M/M, Modern Era, javid - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26416606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panicky_pancakes/pseuds/panicky_pancakes
Summary: Ever since Jack Kelly, the little orphan boy from nowhere, moved in next door to Davey Jacobs when they were eight years old, the two have been inseparable. All through school, they've been best friends, just Davey and Jack as they've always been. But what happens as they get older?
Relationships: Crutchie/Finch (Newsies), David Jacobs/Jack Kelly, Sarah Jacobs/Katherine Plumber Pulitzer, Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins
Comments: 20
Kudos: 82





	1. Probably

**Author's Note:**

> Alright so this is my first ever AO3 fic - please tell me in the comments if I messed something up with the tags, or the formatting, or something, just tell me! I hope you like chapter one - it'll get better from here, I promise!

**JULY 2009**

A moving truck! There was a moving truck beside David's house!

Leaving his window hanging open, David stomped down the stairs with as much speed and energy as a seven-year-old could muster. Nobody was downstairs yet - David was usually the first one awake, and he loved the quiet morning feeling that hung in the kitchen air before his parents and sister woke up. He poured himself cereal and scarfed it as fast as he could, eyes on the clock - seven a.m. on the dot - perfect timing. Finishing his breakfast, David tugged on his runners and bolted out the front door, sprinting down the sidewalk and towards the front door of the neighbouring house.

A dark skinned woman was carrying a large box up the driveway, cell phone tucked under one ear as she walked. David fell into step beside her.

"No, I _know_ we didn't _have_ to move," she argued with the person on the phone, "I just thought it might be better for the poor kid. You know, get him to a place with a backyard and a better school, maybe some other kids around who-"

"You have a _kid_?" David asked the woman loudly, making her jump. She dropped her box and her phone with a yelp and squatted down to pick them up. She hung up the phone and stared at David incredulously, eyebrows raised.

"I- Well, yes," she answered, still bewildered. "How did you-"

"I live next door," David interrupted. "Where is he? How old is he? What's his name? Where did you guys move from? Where..." he trailed off, remembering what his mother had told him yesterday. _'Sometimes people don't want to answer all of your questions.'_

"Jack should be over by the garden," the woman told him, pointing with her free hand towards a boy David's age. He sat dejectedly, holding a pencil loosely in his hand. David skipped over and sat down next to the other boy, smiling brightly. He hoped that his smile could catch onto the other boy like how he'd gotten the flu from Elmer last winter, so he grinned as hard as he could.

"Hi!"

"Um... hi," the kid said quietly, not looking at David.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Jack. How 'bout you?" David had friends that sounded like Jack - he must have been from the city!

"My name's David! Are you gonna go to Central Elementary?"

Jack shook his head, still not making eye contact. "Nope. I think she's gonna send me away soon."

David was confused. What kind of mom sent away her son? "Isn't she your mom?"

"Nuh-uh!" Jack shouted, suddenly animated. His face was a muddle of a million different emotions, and David couldn't tell what the other boy was feeling at that moment. "She ain't my ma! She's just fostering me! That means if she doesn't like me, she'll give me back."

"Well... I'm not your friend yet," David said slowly, "but I don't need to foster you to know that we're gonna be friends forever. 'Kay?"

"Okay, Davey."

"David."

"Mmmmm.... no. Davey."

**SEPTEMBER 2013**

"You nervous?" Jack asked him.

Davey shook his head, but his heart was pounding. Central Middle was _so much bigger_ than Central Elementary. And the eighth graders were GINORMOUS! How could he be expected to get good grades while constantly surrounded by people older and smarter than him? And changing classes? Forget it. He was done for. Forget high school, forget university, sixth grade was going to be his last year of school because _Davey was going to die._

"He's lyin'," Race said, coming up behind the two of them. "He's _very_ nervous."

"What, and you aren't?" Davey snorted, fiddling methodically with his backpack strap.

Before Race could answer, they all went quiet as they watched a boy in a wheelchair wheel past them and towards the front door of the school. His wheelchair was bright yellow, and he wore a faded NASA shirt under a brown hoodie. He looked hopefully optimistic in a way Davey had never really seen before - and certainly not from anybody on the first day of school.

"We should talk to him," Jack decided, walking over to where the boy had paused to look at his schedule. Coming closer, Davey saw that he had doodled sunflowers and vines crawling around his class schedule.

"Hi there," Davey greeted nervously, glancing at his watch. Seven forty-five - he had time.

"Oh, hi, I'm Charlie." Charlie looked up at the three of them with bright eyes, smiling. "Hey, do you know where Art is? It's first on my schedule."

"I can take you," Jack piped up, opening the door for the four of them. "I have art first, too. Hey, Davey, we best get going - see you around, yeah?"

Something tugged in the pit of Davey's stomach. What was it?

"Yeah, see you."

**JANUARY 2013**

"Come on, guys, it's January! You learned this in October," the English teacher chided, tapping the board with her dry erase marker. "I'll ask _one more time_ : What comes after the author's name in a citation?"

Davey loved English class but _dear God_. He glanced over at Jack, who rolled his eyes and went back to doodling on the last page of his notebook. Race was completely passed out on his desk and Albert... well, Albert was taking apart every pen in his pencil case and sorting the parts into tiny piles. The teacher pointed at Davey - well, he thought she did, but she was actually calling on the girl sitting behind him. She ate lunch with them sometimes; maybe her name was Kat? Katie? Katherine?

After the girl answered, the bell thankfully rang, causing the entire class to scramble for their book bags and head towards the door. Davey shouldered his backpack and headed towards the door.

The cool winter air didn't bother Davey as he sat in the oak tree between his and Jack's house. Gnarled branches curled perfectly into a seat-shape in the middle of the tree, and Davey was seated on his side, Jack’s side still empty. His friend had some kind of art thing after school that day, so Davey was alone.

There was something quiet about winter, he thought, gazing down at the fresh, sparkling snow. Something not quite sleeping but not quite alive, something that said _I’m waiting_ and something that made the air ring and your nostrils sting when you breathed.

“Hey.”

Davey was startled out of his thoughts and looked down to see Jack scaling the snow crusted branches of the oak tree, ears and nose pink with cold.

“Hi, Jack,” Davey greeted, scooting over to make room for him on the branch. “When are you ever going to wear a hat?”

“Never,” Jack joked, sitting down. “Man, only six months left of sixth grade.”

“And only seven years until college.”

“Don’t tell me you’re already thinking about that!” Jack teased, pushing Davey’s shoulder. “It’s _seven_ years!”

“Well, time flies,” Davey sighed, eyes fixed on the roof of Jack’s house.

“Davey, come on,” he chided, yanking Davey’s hat off his head. “Live in the moment! You’re twelve years old, you got your whole _life_ ahead of you!”

“No, give it back!”

“Ah, come on, make me!” With that, Jack jumped down from the branch, landing in the soft snow beneath the tree and taking off running, boots slipping on the ice as he went.

“Jack Kelly, come back here!” Davey more fell than jumped, scrambling to stand once he hit the ground. “Give me my hat!”

“You’re going to have to catch me first!”

**JUNE 2015**

“And so, as you walk out of Central Middle School’s doors for the final time, don’t remember the grades you got.”

Davey snorted.

“Remember the friends you made and the people you became. As you move on to high school, keep the lessons you’ve learned here in your mind and heed them as you grow.”

Jack leaned over to whisper in Davey’s ear. “Yeah, I learned how to dodge people in the halls,” he quipped, “I’ll _certainly_ keep that one in mind.”

Biting back a laugh, Davey refocused on the principal’s speech. Why his school had chosen to hold their graduation ceremony outside in the middle of the afternoon in _June_ he would never know. Sweat trickled down his back as the principal finished his speech and stepped away from the podium, giving the eighth graders freedom to talk and roam around.

“So _are_ you gonna go away to that boarding school?” Jack asked, bending over to tie his laces. “Canada’s pretty far away.”

“I don’t think so,” Davey mused, watching Katherine and his sister squeal and show off their certificates of graduation to each other. “I’d miss you guys too much.”

“You’ll stay?” Jack sounded hopeful, and Davey felt his ears grow hot. He’d probably just forgotten to put on sunscreen. It definitely wasn’t because Jack’s hair was falling on his forehead just that way, or because his coffee-brown eyes were locked with his own, and most _certainly_ not because blue was definitely Jack's colour, evidenced by the blue button-up he'd chosen to wear to graduation.

Definitely not.

“Yeah, I’ll stay. You’re stuck with me ‘till you go to Santa Fe, Cowboy.”

"Come on, you probably won't even leave me alone then."

"Probably not."


	2. The Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> High school brings all kinds of anxieties...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So my last chapter got a fair amount of reads, here's chapter two!

**AUGUST 2015**

“I mean, I don’t know. High school always just felt so… far away. And now it’s in two weeks.”

Jack’s room was semi-dark, the only light from his digital clock, reading 1:05 a.m. Davey lay on the floor in a sleeping bag while Jack sat covered in pillows on his bed. This scene was not unfamiliar to either of them – they had been sleeping over at each other’s houses since a week after they’d met.

“Yeah, it’s crazy,” Davey agreed, propping his head up on his hand. “Like, high school is when you really kind of become yourself, right?”

“Right.”

“But what if I don’t know who I am?”

“Maybe that’s the point,” Jack mused with a yawn. “Maybe you’re s’posed to not know ‘till you get outta high school, then you find out after.”

Davey watched the clock change, silent and thinking. “I’m excited, though,” he admitted, rubbing his eyes. “It’s a whole new building, new teachers, all that. Like sixth grade all over again, except this time maybe we’ll know what we’re doing.”

“I never know what I’m doing,” Jack laughed softly, turning over. “That’s why I got you.”

“You think I know, either?” he asked, feeling his cheeks grow hot. “Come on, we’re in the same boat.”

“If you say so. ‘Night, Davey.”

“’Night, Jackie.”

**DECEMBER 2015**

“MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Racetrack shouted at someone down the hallway, shoving his Santa hat onto his head.

“Race, you don’t gotta yell,” Charlie said, shutting his locker door. “We all know it’s Christmas. You’re the only one that cares that much.”

“I have to agree,” Davey input, “Hell, I don’t even celebrate it.”

“Oh, right,” Race remembered as they walked down the hall. “Still, winter holidays are upon us! We’re free!”

“That we are, Racer,” Albert laughed, pushing the door open and holding it to allow the rest of them to step out into the December air. “You all’re going to Finch’s party tonight, right?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Davey saw Charlie go pink, blush creeping up above the edge of his knitted scarf. “Who else is going?”

“Ah, not too many,” Albert said, “there won’t be no girls, neither. We asked Kath n’ Sarah, but they said they was goin’ to the Christmas market downtown.”

“My sister,” Davey sighed as they waited for the crosswalk. “Always blowin’ me off.”

“When they gonna get together, anyway?” Race asked, “I mean, it’s sort of obvious, an’ ever since Sarah came out last month Katherine’s been all heart-eyed for her.”

_What?_ Davey must not have been paying attention during all of the times they’d hung out together. Was Katherine really crushing on his sister? Sarah had come out as pansexual the day after Halloween, he knew that for sure. Was he _really_ that oblivious? What else had he missed?

“I don’t know,” Davey said instead of letting on that he’d missed the signs. “I think Sarah likes her, though. We’ll see.”

“They’ll be together before Easter,” Charlie muttered, pushing himself up Davey’s driveway. It had been a bit of a walk from the school to Davey’s house, and he was obviously fatigued from avoiding icy patches and snowdrifts.

“Never took you for a betting man, Charlie,” Albert joked, “hey, you need help gettin’ to the door?”

“Thanks, but I’ll be okay. It’s not too steep. Ask me again once the sleet comes, though.”

A huge winter storm had been forecast for that night, sleet, snow, wind, the whole trifecta. The weather channels had all been saying that they’d get at least a foot of snow, with sleet on top of it, a fact that had only supercharged the _last-day-before-break_ energy at school that day.

_“You should come before the storm does,_ ” Finch said through the phone, “ _’S okay. I never set a specific time anyway. If you leave now you could probably get here by six, just take the train_.”

“Yeah, we’ll head out,” Davey told him, pulling on his jacket and motioning to the other boys to get going. “We’ll grab Jack from his place and go to the train station. See you, Finch.”

_“See you._ ”

The four of them stood at Jack’s door, the echo of the doorbell sounding through his house. From outside, a muffled, rhythmic thumping could be heard, which Davey assumed was Jack going down the stairs.

“Hey, fellas,” Jack greeted, opening the door. “We oughta’ get going before the storm.”

Because it was winter, the sun had already set, the sky above them a royal blue. Clouds were gathered on the horizon, their grey colour an indication of the blizzard to come. The snow beneath Davey’s boots was crunchy and hard, squeaking as he walked.

“What’d you get on that math test?” Charlie asked while they searched for the handicap ramp into the train station. “Can’t believe Mr. Murphy set a test on the second last day before break.”

“It was bullshit,” Race agreed, pushing Charlie up the ramp. “I didn’t study. Out of protest.”

“Protest or procrastination?” Davey wondered absentmindedly, searching through his bag for his train card.

“Yeah, well what’d you get, Brains?” Albert scoffed, pulling out his own card as they walked toward the gate line. “And how long did ya study?”

“Well…” Davey glanced towards Jack as he scanned his card. Jack said nothing, just raised his eyebrows and smiled. “I studied for four hours,” he admitted sheepishly, unsure why he felt guilty of working for too long.

“And?”

“Eighty five,” Davey sighed while checking the train schedule. “Not my best. Anyway, the train to Finch’s place comes in ten minutes.”

Jack looked out the tall, bright windows. “The storm’ll hit before we make it to his place,” he said, “too bad. We might end up stayin’ there if Finch is good with it.”

“That sounds cool.”

“Guys!” Finch exclaimed when they finally arrived and he’d buzzed them in. “Glad to see youse! Man, this blizzard’s batshit, huh? Good thing ya got here ‘fore it gets too bad.”

Davey smiled, happy to hear his friend’s city accent. His family had moved from Canada when he and Sarah had been five, giving the two of them an unplaceable but mellow accent that could really only be described as “North American”. Finch’s, however, was the exact opposite.

That night, the group flicked through various Christmas movies, pausing at about ten to bake gingerbread cookies. While the cookies baked, six flour-covered boys sat on the floor of the kitchen playing truth or dare.

“Davey! Truth or dare?” Albert asked.

_Fuck._ Davey had forgotten how scary this game was when you were on the other end of the question. “Um, truth,” he decided, playing it safe.

“If ya had to pick one of us,” Albert said mischievously, “to date, I mean. Who’d it be?”

Immediately, Davey’s eyes shot to Jack involuntarily. Jack just shrugged, mildly confused. “I…” It had been a while since Davey had had a full-blown panic attack, and this still wasn’t really one, but nonetheless he felt like he was choking.

“I… I’m gonna get some air,” he breathed, standing up. “Call me when the cookies are done or something.” Shrugging on his jacket, he stepped out onto Finch’s fire escape. He sat on the cold metal steps for a while, staring down at the moving cars.

“Heya, Dave.” Jack shut the door behind him and sat down next to Davey. “You okay?”

“No, Jack,” Davey sighed, “I’m not okay. I just…” Could he tell Jack? Tell him that he wasn’t out of the closet yet? Bisexual people tended to get hate, he knew that for a fact, but Jack wasn’t the type to be biphobic, right? Davey had realised it by _looking at Jack_ during science class, but he could leave that part out. He wasn't even sure that he _was_ bi, but he'd had girl crushes before, and he'd sure as hell had guy ones. Maybe fourteen was too young to decide on a label, but Davet needed _something_ to name the feeling that rose in his chest when he saw Jack, or when he saw that one sophomore girl with the purple hair.

“You can tell me,” Jack murmured. “I ain’t got nobody else to tell, really, ‘cept for the other guys. I know what your panic attacks look like. I wanna help.”

“Jack, the reason I couldn’t answer that question is because I’m bisexual,” Davey said in one breath, barely stopping between words.

_Holy shit_. That was it. All it took. All that worrying and it was over in a matter of seconds. “My label might change,” Davey continued as Jack listened, “but for now… that’s what fits.”

“Damn, so you _do_ got it all figured out,” Jack whispered, not breaking eye contact with him. “I’m jealous.”

Good God. When would people learn that Davey _didn’t_ have it all figured out? Just because he got good grades didn’t mean he knew what he was doing, or that he knew all the answers!

“Hey, I’m trying to come out over here,” Davey quipped in a pitiful attempt to hide his feelings. “But… thanks for listening.”

“Thanks for tellin’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! Please comment/kudos if you did! I can't commit to an upload schedule but I can commit to listening to my readers and writing in the best way I know how.


	3. No Stranger to Heartbreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Central High School's production of Grease leads to a life-changing cast party that could keep Davey's subconscious crush alive - or squash it like a bug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So Archie the director is actually an OC of my friend Rhyse (@theworldisyererster1 on Tumblr), so go check out their blog if you want to see more of him!

**APRIL 2017**

“Okay, guys, let’s run it again, please!”

Davey groaned, along with the rest of the cast. They’d been at rehearsal for an hour already, with two more left to go before everyone could go home. They had been going over _Greased Lightning_ since warmup had ended and Davey was getting tired of it. Sure, playing Danny Zuko was a big freaking deal, but _god_. Could they not practice a different song? Davey looked offstage to where Jack was standing with the rest of the tech crew and rolled his eyes. Jack smiled back at him, making Davey’s heart flutter.

“Break for water. Thanks, everyone. Then, Carrie, we’ll run _Worse Things_.” Their director, Archie, waved them off the stage with a flick of his wrist, consulting the tech manager about lights. Archie was a teacher – a long time ago he’d asked his students to call him by his first name, so most of them had forgotten his last. He only had one working arm, but that didn’t stop him from choreographing and directing the fall and spring musicals every year.

“When do we get our costumes again?” Davey asked Jack while they sat backstage, letting the freshman playing Rizzo run through _There Are Worse Things I Could Do_.

“Tomorrow,” Jack answered, writing something in the margin of the script. “You excited?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, tapping his thumb repeatedly against his middle finger. “You? Excited to have the set finally done so you can start doing the scene changes?”

“Ugh, God,” Jack groaned, “it’d make it so much easier, lemme tell ya.”

The next day, Davey spent every period wanting it to be three-thirty so he could just _go_ to rehearsal. Everything was there – his new costume, his friends, the stage, _Jack_ , who he hadn’t even begun to sort out his feelings for. It was platonic, of that he was sure; but why did he feel a flicker when they made eye contact? What kind of platonic relationship was like that?

“Costumes!” Jack shouted like a herald when Davey walked through the stage door. “Get’cha costumes right here!”

“Hey, Jack,” Davey greeted, “where can I find mine?”

“Right here,” Jack said, handing him a garment bag. “Go get changed, then we’ll run it. We only have two in-costumes before tech week, can you believe it?”

“Don’t want to!” he called over his shoulder on the way to the bathroom. It was true – he didn’t want the spring show season to end for a few reasons, none of them logical and _none_ of them making sense.

Unzipping the garment bag, Davey could see his costume for the first time. A faux-leather jacket and a white t-shirt hung from the hanger. From out of his bag he dug the pair of jeans the J-Bird actors had been told to bring and hung them on the hanger.

Stepping out of the bathroom stall fully in costume, Davey felt a rush of confidence. It wasn’t quite Davey Jacobs that stood in front of him, not quite the anxious honours student who couldn’t even come to terms with his own feelings. But it wasn’t Danny Zuko looking back at him either. Some sort of amalgamation of Davey and Danny was reflected in the mirror, and it was exactly the kind of person Davey wished he was in real life.

Combing through his hair with his hands, Davey left the bathroom and went to go sit on the stage while Archie talked. Most of the cast was already onstage, just a few techies left in the wings moving some props around. Jack was one of them, and he bumped into Davey before he could step aside.

“Sorry,” Jack apologized, putting down the prop box. “Oh,” he breathed, seeing Davey’s costume. “Uh… You look nice.”

“Thanks,” Davey whispered, trying to listen to Archie while talking to Jack. “First full rehearsal, huh?”

“Your collar’s crooked,” he murmured, reaching up to fix it. “Go get ‘em, Danny.”

Strangely, every word in the English language left his mind at that moment. Swallowing the lump in his throat that had appeared there, Davey nodded and went out on stage to talk to Archie.

“Hey, Davey,” Archie called from his seat in the auditorium. “Great, the costume fits. So we’re just gonna run it front-to-back, okay?”

“Uh…”

 _Go get ‘em, Danny_.

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do it.”

Opening night brought with it a buzz that Davey couldn’t quite explain. The snow was melted, leaving a musty smell in the air, and new buds peeked out of branches with their bright greens and yellows dotting the spiny skeletons that would soon be full, bushy trees.

The time before curtain was a blur – full of quick warmups, hugs between castmates, and anxious rifling through scripts. Davey barely saw Jack that night; once or twice from the stage he glimpsed the other boy clad in a headset and wearing all black.

Finally, the curtain touched the ground. Adrenaline pulsed through Davey’s body, fueled by the thunderous applause that was dying out on the other side.

Eventually, after everything had been reset, Davey and Jack left the theatre, bags slung over their shoulders. Jack’s mother’s car waited for them in the parking lot, headlights on and motor running. The crisp evening felt like spring; summery enough that Davey was in a hoodie, but not so warm that he could be in a t-shirt.

“Hey, mama,” Jack said when they got in the car. “How’d you like the show?”

“It was wonderful!” Medda exclaimed, pulling out of the parking lot. “Davey, you were a star. Soon you’ll have to come audition for one of our productions!” Medda ran a regional theatre company, and she’d been trying to get Davey to audition every since he’d gotten Danny.

“I’ll try, Medda, but I have to stay in honours classes,” Davey sighed, clicking his seatbelt. “I don’t know if I can do another show this year.”

“Oh, too bad,” she murmured, turning onto their street. “Tell me if you change your mind, son, okay?” They’d arrived at Davey’s house, where most of the lights were already off. “Say hi to your mother for me, would you?”

“Will do!”

The cast party on closing night was one of the oddest places Davey had ever been. There was alcohol, he’d expected that, but he hadn’t really considered the effect of alcohol on twenty theatre kids.

Race and a kid from another school Davey didn’t know were singing _Seventeen_ as a duet using red solo cups as microphones.

Katherine, Sarah, Finch, and Specs were dancing energetically to _Ex-Wives_ , attempting complex moves while keeping their drinks from spilling.

Meanwhile, Davey and Jack sat, drinks in hand, watching the party unfold. Davey periodically took sips of his drink. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he liked it, and as he drank he felt less anxious, so he assumed it couldn’t hurt too much. Besides, what could happen? This was his only drink he’d had, he wasn’t drunk. Confident, sure, but not drunk.

“Hey,” Jack raised his voice over the music, “can we talk? Outside, maybe?” Albert’s house had a large backyard, and the party hadn’t spilled outside yet.

“Sure,” Davey said, standing up and following Jack out the back door. “What is it?”

“Well,” Jack began once he closed the sliding door. “Remember Finch’s Christmas party last December?”

“Yeah.”

“When you told me you was bi?”

What? Of course Davey remembered. “People tend to remember who they first come out to, Jack,” Davey joked. “What about it?”

“I, uh… Look, can I just try somethin’?”

“Wh—”

Jack’s lips were on Davey’s. It was messy, it was fast, and Jack tasted like booze, but it was _something_. What it was, Davey wasn’t sure, but it was _something_.

“Um…” Davey scratched his neck, unsure how to react. His best friend, his next door neighbour, had just kissed him. How _could_ he react?

“I don’t know what’s going _on_ , Davey,” Jack moaned, tearing a hand through his hair and turning away. “I don’t know what I been feelin’ I don’t… I _think_ I’m straight?”

“I understand,” Davey said, to his own surprise. “I don’t care that you kissed me—” his heart, thumping out a fast beat, disagreed “—but it’s okay. You’re straight, then. If it took that for you to realize, then that’s what it took.”

Jack bit his lip. “You know it’s not because a’ you. Right?”

“I know.”


	4. no.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just have to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry this took awhile, hopefully the next chapter will be up in a shorter amount of time! Enjoy!

**OCTOBER 2017**

“Only two months left in the year,” Jack sighed, scratching his ear. He and Davey were sitting in the old oak tree between their two houses, something they hadn’t done in years. Davey didn’t know why – they’d practically lived up there when they had been younger.

“It’s crazy, huh?” Davey said, hearing his phone ping. Pulling it out of his pocket, he kept talking. “I mean, next year we’ll all have college figured out and everything. Next year it’ll almost be 2019.”

The text was from a friend of his, a boy in theatre named Noah. They’d gotten to know each other better since school had started, and it was the fastest Davey had ever made a friend…save for Jack.

_NOAH: hey how r u? rehearsal wasn’t as good w/o u_

Davey blushed a little bit, ignoring Jack’s side-eye.

_DAVEY: Aww thanks! :) I’ll be there tomorrow, I just had to finish that essay._

_NOAH: ofc u use perfect grammar in txts lol. don’t leave me again pls_

“Who you texting that’s got you so happy?” Jack asked, nudging Davey’s arm.

“Oh, just a guy from theatre,” Davey said. “You wouldn’t know him, he’s new. You’ll probably meet him at the spring musical.” Jack always did tech for the spring musical, but not the fall. In the fall, he usually did an art internship or class of some kind, so Davey was _usually_ all by himself. But now Noah was there.

“Yeah? What’s his name, then, huh?”

“Noah,” Davey answered, ignoring the red he knew was spreading across his face.

“Well, uh… good luck,” Jack said awkwardly, patting Davey on the back.

“Hey, Davey,” Noah greeted when Davey got to rehearsal the next day. “How was that essay?”

“Worse than anything you could imagine,” Davey joked, taking out his script. It was so early in the year that they weren’t off-book yet, and the paper was full of notes and highlighter marks. “The whole time, I wished I was here.”

Noah had red-blond hair that curled across his forehead like a wave. His blue eyes almost glowed when he got excited, and when he sang they looked like the centre of a flame. His freckles splashed across his nose like stars, and oh _fuck_ Davey was staring.

“You…okay there?”

“Yeah, fine,” Davey stammered, “I’m, uh…I’m fine. Sorry.”

“Hey, no crime in staring,” Noah said quietly, not looking away.

Rehearsal began as normal, with the cast going through the script and asking questions as they went. About halfway through, they went over some group numbers at the piano, and Davey swore Noah had been looking at him. But, he supposed, when you had a crush on someone your brain did its own gymnastics to make you think they liked you back. That was what it must have been.

“Oh, by the way,” Noah caught Davey as they were leaving rehearsal. “I just thought I’d mention… I’m gay, so, uh… if you… if what happened earlier um…”

“Uh, I’m bi,” Davey stuttered, “but thanks for telling me. I have to go,” he blurted. “I have…math homework.”

No. No, no, no, no. Why did he _do_ that? A perfect opportunity had presented itself to get into a relationship with someone he liked and he’d fucking blown it. Why? What was holding him back? Sure, he might have had a _lingering_ crush on Jack, but how could he let that stop him?

“You know what,” he muttered to himself as he walked home. “No. Not letting that happen.” Before he could stop himself, Davey yanked his cell phone out of his backpack pocket and dialed Noah.

 _“Hello?_ ”

“Noah, hi,” Davey said into the phone. “So, uh… I’m just gonna come right out and say it…”

“ _Go for it._ ”

“Were you trying to ask me out?” his heart beat against his ribcage. There it was. That was it. He’d done it.

“ _Uh… it took you that long to notice?_ ” Noah sounded happy on the other end of the phone as Davey turned the corner onto his street. Jack’s car was in its driveway. He was home. Could Davey talk to him about what was going on?

“I guess,” Davey sighed. “Sorry about that. Do you wanna… get coffee sometime?”

 _“I’d love to. After rehearsal tomorrow?_ ”

“Yeah.” Davey was blushing an inordinate amount, but he didn’t care.

 _“Then it’s a date! See you then._ ”

“See you.” He hung up the phone and stopped walking in front of Jack’s house. He thought about knocking on the door. After what had happened last spring, would Jack want to talk about Davey being bi? Davey getting a boyfriend? It hurt that he couldn’t be sure.

The door swung open to reveal Jack on the other side, blue paint smeared down the bridge of his nose. He wore an old cooking apron repurposed as a painting smock that read _BBQ LIKE NO ONE’S WATCHING_.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What’s up?” Jack asked, twirling his paintbrush between his fingers.

“I… just thought I’d tell you…” Even though it was awkward, Davey couldn’t hide it. He was excited! “I got a boyfriend!”

“That Noah guy?” Jack didn’t look happy. His expression hardly changed at all. “Good for you.”

“Aren’t you…happy for me?” Davey’s adrenaline started to waver.

“Oh!” Jack looked startled. “I, I mean, of course!” The support felt sickeningly fabricated.

“You don’t have to fake it,” Davey said, shaking his head. “It’s fine.”

“Wh—”

That was it. Davey was angry now. The giddiness he’d felt just a few minutes ago was gone, replaced by a strange, cold anger. It was the kind of anger you could only feel when mad at a friend; it felt a little bit _wrong_.

“—Don’t, Jack,” he interrupted. “Come on. Just because you _thought_ you were into guys and then you decided you weren’t doesn’t mean you can’t be supportive of _me_!”

“Dave, that ain’t why…” Jack stepped out onto the stoop, shutting the front door behind him.

“Then _why_ , Jack!? Why is it that ever since you kissed me that night you’ve barely talked to me? All summer, even when school started! _Why_?”

Davey saw Jack swallow what he assumed was a lump similar to the one growing in his own throat. Immediately, he regretted what he’d said. There was truth in it, sure, but Davey wasn’t sure if it was worth the oldest friendship he had.

“I think you should go,” Jack said curtly. “’Fore one of us says somethin’ we _don’t_ mean.” He went inside and closed the door, leaving Davey alone on the front porch.

When Davey got home, he went upstairs without a word to his mother and father in the kitchen. Falling onto his unmade bed, he wondered about homework, but then decided he’d do it later. Whatever was going on in his head made no sense, and there was only one person he could talk to about it. Usually, it would have been two.

“Charlie, thank God,” Davey said when his mother called him downstairs to tell him his friend was here.

Charlie’s dark blond hair was tucked under a yellow knit cap, and he wore a vintage-looking gray shirt with a circular seal that read _Prevent Wildfires_.

“Where’s your shirt from?” Davey asked when they sat down in the living room.

“Oh, uh, it’s Smokey the Bear,” Charlie explained. “From these old wildfire ads. I found it at this cool shop downtown…” he trailed off, seemingly remembering the way Davey had sounded when he’d called him. “What happened?”

“Well, uh, I got a boyfriend,” Davey began, deciding to start with the positive. “So there’s that. But then, after he asked me out, I went and told Jack ‘cause I needed to tell somebody. You know?”

“Yeah, I get that,” Charlie said, leaning forward in his wheelchair. “What’d he say?”

“He…didn’t seem very happy,” Davey remembered, picturing the look on his best friend’s face. “I don’t know why. But then I got mad at him.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“A bunch of reasons,” he admitted, feeling a dam break inside him. Charlie was just easy to talk to, he supposed. “Mostly… at last year’s cast party, Jack kissed me.” Charlie raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. “It was to see if he liked guys,” Davey clarified. “And after, he said he didn’t. But ever since then he’s sort of stopped talking to me.”

“So…” Charlie knit his brows, thinking. “Do you feel bad about what you said?”

“Yes, but also, no,” Davey said, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “I needed to say it, I just don’t know if I should have.”

“Oh, there’s the ticket! That’s probably a good spot to start if you want to apologize!” Charlie smiled, but this time it didn’t catch on to Davey.

“I…thanks, Charlie.”

After Charlie left, Davey opened his last text conversation with Jack. Clicking onto the keyboard, it took him a moment before he typed out exactly what he wanted to say. He still wasn't happy with how passively positive it sounded, but it would have to do. He hit send.

_DAVEY: Hey, do you want to talk about it?_

The three dots appeared almost immediately, giving Davey a flicker of hope.

_JACK: no._


	5. New Year's Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ringing in the New Year is something the gang has done for a long time, but this one feels different... A breakup and a makeup in the span of one day puts Davey in a strange position he never thought he'd be in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

**DECEMBER 31 ST 2017**

**_7:32 pm_ **

Boy, was Davey embarrassed. New Year’s Eve and he’d just broken up with his boyfriend. Now he was at Katherine’s party, trying to mull over the recent development. How sad was it to be alone at a party that you’d originally planned to go to with your ex?

_God, it was a long time coming,_ Davey thought. The relationship had been good for a while… then it had started to sputter and fizzle as if it were a dying bonfire. Davey and Noah had all but stopped talking, just the usual good morning and good night texts. They hadn’t even sat together at lunch anymore. It barely felt like a relationship to Davey, so he’d told Noah. Telling his boyfriend had resulted in a full-blown verbal fight, one of the biggest he’d ever been in, complete with insults, yelling, the works. He didn’t even remember what he had said, but it ended with Noah leaving in a huff and Davey being single again.

“Hey, Davey,” Katherine said, sitting down next to him. “How you feeling?” The party had just started, the sky outside not even dark yet, so nobody was hammered yet. Twenty or so people were crowded into Katherine’s living room, and an intense game of Jenga was going on at the coffee table.

“Not awesome,” he admitted, “but thanks, Kath.”

“I know breakups are hard,” Katherine sighed. “But you’ll get over it. You’re… you!”

“Me being me is the whole reason I lost him. The whole reason we drifted apart.” The breakup had been Davey’s decision, but he was still allowed to be upset.

Katherine tilted her head, thinking. Her red-brown hair was woven into a braid that curled over her shoulder, the end of it brushing the top of the stylised _Sherlock_ graphic on her T-shirt, and as she thought she twirled the braid around her ring-clad fingers.

“Noah? Or Jack?”

“God, don’t remind me,” Davey groaned, putting his head in his hands.

“Maybe it was for the best,” Katherine hedged, “the breakup, I mean. Would you rather have a boyfriend or a best friend?”

“The problem was that I couldn’t have both,” Davey muttered, shooting a glance at Jack. His former best friend was currently trying to psych Race out as he pulled a Jenga block away from a teetering tower.

“All I’m going to say before I leave you with your misery,” Katherine began, “is that it’s probably better if you _try_ and talk to him. New Year’s Resolution, huh?”

“Maybe. Thank you.” _New Year’s Resolution, indeed._

“Hey, I’m dating your sister, I have to stay on your good side.”

**_11:46 pm_ **

Something was strange about New Year’s Eve parties, Davey mused internally, looking around from his seat next to Race’s boyfriend Spot. People were hopeful, sure, but something felt tense and something felt different. How strange it was, he thought, that people chose one day a year, one night _exactly_ like all the others, to drink and to “ring in the New Year”. He loved it, though.

Jack sat by the window, not talking to anyone, sipping something from a short glass. Davey wondered if he knew about the breakup. How could he? If he did…what would he say? Could things go back to normal? Could things _ever_ go back to normal?

Only one way to find out.

“What you drinking, Kelly?” Davey asked, coming over to sit with Jack. It was the beginning of an old inside joke from when Davey’s father had taught them how to mix drinks in the seventh grade.

“I’ll have a pint a’ milk, on the rocks,” Jack replied in turn with a small smile. It helped ease Davey’s nerves to know that he still remembered the joke.

“Listen… about that thing… we broke up.”

“Yikes. That’s tough, Davey. How ya feelin’?” Jack didn’t look at Davey still.

“You know, people keep asking me that,” Davey said, “and to be honest, I don’t know how to answer half the time. So, let’s say I’m fine. But… do you want to talk about it?”

“That’d be nice,” Jack sighed, finally meeting Davey’s eyes. He had forgotten how brown they really were, like cups of coffee with cream or perfect pieces of milk chocolate. They weren’t as dark as his hair, which was a dark umber, still lighter than Davey’s own near-black hair.

“So…should we start with why we stopped talking?”

“Well, that would involve a certain amount of disclosure,” Jack laughed, drinking the last of his drink. “But sure.”

The rest of the party seemed to fade away as Davey focused on his friend. Their friends’ voices became a hum, a muddled mess in the back of his mind.

“When I kissed ya that time…an’ I said I was straight…to be honest, it was just easier to say straight an’ move on.”

_What?_

“Oh. Okay.” What else was there to say? “How about the Noah problem?”

“Davey, what do you think?”

Davey thought a lot of things.

“I was mad,” Jack continued, “’cause I didn’t want to lose y—my friend,” he finished. “Relationships sometimes get in the way of that.”

“Jackie, come on,” Davey sighed, suddenly fully aware of Jack’s hand close to his on the ground. “You’re the first real friend I’ve ever had, and the best one, too.”

“ _Friend_ ,” Jack murmured, moving his hand just a centimetre in Davey’s direction. “That’s a weird word.”

Davey had no idea what was going on, but some force other than his own caused him to shift his hand the tiniest bit so it was nearly touching Jack’s. The air between them seemed to buzz with electricity.

“I guess so.”

Jack’s lips were pink and soft-looking, their shape the exact kind an artist or cartoonist would draw when trying to draw someone gorgeous– perfectly proportioned, centered between two identical dimples. He took a sharp breath in, making Davey’s heart flutter, and leaned a little closer, probably without even noticing he did. But Davey noticed.

“I think they’re gonna start the countdown,” Jack said quietly, shooting a glance at his hand next to Davey’s. “We should probably go and do it too.”

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was about 500 words shorter than the rest of them, but I hope you liked it!


	6. Laughter and Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes it takes a memory and an empty house to fix what needs to be fixed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to look at the dates at the top of the part! The first one is 2012, making them 11 years old, so that's a flashback :).

**MAY 2012**

“Okay, now, just put the worm on the—”

“Ah!”

The worm went flying off the small boat and into the still lake below, leaving Jack empty-handed while Davey howled with laughter.

“Don’t laugh, son,” Davey’s dad reprimanded, taking the fishing rod out of Jack’s hands. “When I first took _you_ fishing…”

“Dad, don’t!” he stopped his father from telling the embarrassing story while he could.

“No, tell me,” Jack urged.

Davey shook his head, giggling. “It’s too terrible!”

“Please?” Jack jokingly made puppy-dog eyes at Davey, pushing his lower lip out into an exaggerated pout.

“Fine,” Davey sighed, rolling his eyes and stabbing a worm onto his hook. “When Dad first took me fishing, I…”

“Go on,” urged his father.

“I saw a fish off the side of the boat and I tried to jump off and get it with my hands. Once I fell in, I came up with a crab pinched on my finger,” Davey said without stopping, slamming his eyes closed while he spoke. He couldn’t bear the embarrassment. He _hated_ telling this story.

Jack laughed. Davey was surprised how the laugh did not bother him. Maybe, he thought as he watched his friend laugh, it was because of the _way_ Jack went about it. There was no malice in the sound that rang out of Jack and across the still lake, just pure and unbridled joy. Often, when people laughed, fear ran through Davey’s veins, though his eleven-year-old mind could not fathom why. Perhaps it was not the fear of people laughing _at_ him, it was something else, something more subconscious and incomprehensible. But this was different somehow, _better_ somehow.

“Davey, that’s awesome,” Jack said, “really makes me feel better about droppin’ the worm.”

“Shut up.”

**MARCH 2018**

It had been a long time since Davey had been in the kitchen with his father. School and work had intensified for both of them, making it harder and harder for Mayer Jacobs to use the part of the house he’d claimed as his “territory”. Davey’s mom had never liked cooking – a combination of the raw meat and a million other things, plus not having the time due to her job as a lawyer made Mayer the de facto cook of the house, with Davey as his sous-chef. They’d stopped when Mayer had gotten a promotion and when Davey had gotten into the honours program.

Now, on spring break, though, Davey had gotten back into cooking, with his dad right there with him.

“Okay, now add the paprika—”

“—I know how to do it, Dad.”

“I know,” Davey’s dad chuckled. “Just… telling you anyways.”

Davey’s mom came into the kitchen, leaving her work bag on one of the barstools by the counter. “Aww,” she said while plugging in her phone. “I remember when you guys first made Shakshuka.”

“Really?” Davey asked absently, stirring the food. “I don’t.”

“You wouldn’t,” she sighed, hugging Davey’s father hello. “It was when your grandparents came down for Hannukah. You and Sarah would have been one or two years old.”

“Where _is_ Sazzy? She said she didn’t have volleyball today.”

“Out with Kathy,” Les answered, coming in the door in time to hear Davey’s question. “Like _always_.” He sat down on the stool not occupied by Esther’s bag and stared intently at the Shakshuka cooking in the pan.

“Can I help you?” Davey laughed.

“Hey, Davey, how come _you_ don’t never go out with people?”

“Don’t _ever_ ,” Davey corrected. “And…I don’t know. Haven’t met the right person yet.”

“Well when—”

Before Les could finish, the doorbell rang, chiming through the house. Putting down the spoon, Davey walked from the kitchen to answer.

“Heya, Dave.”

Jack Kelly. At Davey’s door. The atmosphere outside of Davey was calm, but inside? Rave was an understatement, a bare minimum description for what the butterflies in his stomach were doing, dancing to the electropop beat of his suddenly thumping heart.

“Hi.” Goddamnt it why did his voice have to be like that? All trembly, and… he was overthinking it, wasn’t he?

“Hey, so my mom’s at a theatre gala tonight and I’m alone. You know what happens when I try to cook.”

Davey laughed a little and shuffled his feet. “Yup. Uh…”

Davey’s mother poked her head in over Davey’s shoulder to see Jack. “Hi, Jack!”

“Hey, Ms. Esther,” Jack greeted, waving his hand a little. “How’re things?”

“Oh, they’re okay, honey! How’s Medda?”

“Oh, mom’s doing great!” Jack replied. “She’s actually at a gala for her theatre tonight, which is…why I’m here.”

“Come in! We’re having Shakshuka! You can help Davey and Mayer cook!”

“That ain’t—”

“C’mon, _sous-chef_ ,” Davey joked, pulling his friend inside. “Don’t burn down my kitchen,” he muttered once his mother was out of earshot.

“No?! Ah, my plans!”

“Don’t do that,” Davey sighed for the millionth time, leaving the cutting board where he was chopping peppers for the side-salad to help Jack. “Why would you do that?”

Davey’s parents, along with Les, had taken to dog for a walk before dinner, foolishly leaving Davey and Jack to finish cooking.

“The recipe said…”

“No, it didn’t,” he said quietly, taking the cinnamon out of Jack’s hand before he could put it in the pan with the Shakshuka.

“You sure?” Jack looked at him and grinned softly, whiskey-brown eyes fixed on him.

Davey was suddenly aware that he was standing next to the stove with barely six inches of space between him and Jack. The food cooked placidly beside them, making next to no sound. The silence was deafening.

“Hi,” he breathed, unsure.

A thump echoed through the house, making them both jump until Davey dismissed it as the heating unit in the basement.

“You _sure_ your parents’re gone?” Jack asked, leaning against the counter slightly.

“Yeah. They took Atticus out for a while. Sarah’s gone too. It was the heater, I swear.”

In the quiet that ensued, with both of them watching the pan of food, Davey remembered the day at the lake. He wondered if he’d preferred silence then as much as he did now, preferred it over the sound of a laugh or the notes of music. Stillness was the only thing now in Davey’s life that wasn’t full of thoughts of Jack, ever since the New Year’s Eve party. Now, though, even silence was full of Jack Kelly, of the boy he’d never really sorted out his feelings for.

“I think we gotta talk,” Jack murmured.

“About…?”

“Everything.”

“Probably.”

Neither of them said a word before the front door clicked open and Davey’s family stepped back inside, startling Davey and making him go back to cutting vegetables.

“Dinner was great, thanks Mr. Mayer,” Jack said as he and Davey headed out the door.

“Come again soon!” Davey’s dad shouted as the door closed behind them, putting them into the chilly March air.

“So…” Davey slowed down walking so the short distance to Jack’s house next door could become longer. “You said you wanted to talk.”

“Yeah. Let’s go to the tree.”

“Really? We haven’t been there forever… and if people see…”

“It’s fine, it’ll be dark.”

Davey was unsure. “I don’t know, can’t we talk here on the sidewalk? Or in your room at your place?”

“Come on, for old times sake? An’ goin’ to my room ain’t a good idea, it’s a disaster zone at the moment,” Jack probably lied. Davey knew for a fact the other boy kept his room immaculate (save for the painting supplies usually strewn everywhere).

Through the almost melted snow they trudged, headed towards the barren tree. This was quite the roll of the dice, Davey mused as he climbed. What would happen, he didn’t know. How different a person would he be tomorrow? What would tomorrow’s Davey know that today’s didn’t?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me if you liked this chapter or not - I don't know how I feel about it yet. Be honest!


	7. Wait Forever or Go Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Davey doesn't say something now, he'll have to keep it inside and wait forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating sooner but this is the chapter I'm most proud of in this story. Go check out my other works, which now include a Sprace fic I've recently started!

**MARCH 2018**

“So?”

The moonlight cast silver light on the melting snow beneath them, giving the entire air a strange, spirit-like quality. Hardly any sound could be heard in the neighbourhood, which to Davey only amplified the ghostly feel the evening had.

Another thing lit by the moon was Jack’s face, every shadow and freckle (though there weren’t many) illuminated by the quiet pearly shine emitting from the full moon above them. Jack looked out at the world below them with so much admiration for its beauty, everything in his expression full of wonder and emotion. It was at that moment that Davey saw why he was so in love with Jack Kelly, why he had been for so long. Not because of his looks, but because of how he saw the world in a way that Davey could not.

“Well, uh…” Jack bit his lip and stared at his hands.

“Spit it out, Jack,” Davey sighed, almost exasperated by his friend. He’d had off-and-on feelings for Jack for _years_ – he did NOT want to listen to another one of Jack’s relationship troubles or something like that.

“I can’t,” Jack whispered, looking at Davey with what seemed like fear in his eyes. “I can’t.”

“I can,” Davey said, feeling his heart start to speed up. “If you mean…what happened in the kitchen.”

“Yeah.”

The energy between them was so alien it hurt. Even in the rough patches of their almost lifelong friendship, Davey had never felt like he couldn’t say something. Now, though, the fear that Davey’s explanation could stop Jack liking him altogether made his entire body ache. Better to rip off the band-aid, he thought with an internal grimace.

“Jack, I’ve liked you for a long time,” he said in one breath, barely pausing between words. _Oh, God,_ he thought, mind speeding faster than a train on icy tracks. _I’ve done it. No going back now._ “And I…” against his own will he continued speaking. “If you don’t want to reciprocate that, that’s fine, I just thought—”

“—a year,” Jack muttered, “a year I been waitin’ to hear that.”

Davey did a double-take, eyes wide and cheeks suddenly flushed. _Jack_ had been the one waiting? Perhaps sometimes waiting for love could be akin to a two-way street, but a two-way street where both cars were driven by blindfolded people, hurtling down the road in the hopes that they would meet safely in the middle instead of passing each other entirely or crashing together with a gruesome outcome.

“You…really?”

“The party,” Jack explained with a small, nervous smile. “You know. And the show.”

“We’ve been to a lot of parties, Jack. And been in a lot of shows.”

He shook his head, laughing quietly for a moment at Davey’s sarcasm. “Grease cast party,” he said. “April 2017.”

“Wow, April,” Davey murmured. “How…” he swallowed the tiny lump that had appeared in his throat. “How did I not… I mean, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried,” Jack sighed, “so many times. But every time I hit a wall. Slammed into it-” -he clapped his hands together for effect- “-full force. Tonight, I hit it again. Well, sort of,” Jack amended. “You grabbed me before I could.”

“And now we both know,” Davey agreed, smiling the realest smile he had in months.

“So what now?”

“I don’t know,” Davey admitted. “Honestly I’d never thought past this whole confession thing.”

“Oh.” Jack raised an eyebrow, looking again at the glittering white snow beneath them. Because it was March, it was warm enough to be outside but cold enough that the snow still lingered. “Me neither.”

The tree branch they sat on creaked, reminding Davey just how high off the ground they were. His hand, gripping the thick branch, was next to Jack’s, and he grabbed it on impulse.

**JUNE 2010**

Davey didn’t _want_ to go to the wedding. Albert was having a laser-tag birthday party and instead of going to that, he and Jack were getting dragged across the state by Davey’s parents and Jack’s mom to go to a wedding of a family friend.

“Do I _have_ to?” he whined as they got in the car.

“At least Jack’s going,” his twin sister Sarah muttered, looking out the window with a ferocious glare. “ _You_ get somebody you know.”

“Both of you, stop it,” their mother scolded after clicking their baby brother into his car seat. “Hugo has been a friend of mine for a few years now, and he was kind enough to invite us to his wedding, along with Jack and Medda. Just be respectful,” she said, shutting the driver’s side door and sharing a look with her husband in the passenger seat.

After a three-hour drive they finally arrived at the venue. Their family got out of the car, all of them trying to brush out and smooth the wrinkles that their nice clothing had taken on after sitting in the car for hours.

“I thought we’d never make it,” Sarah snarked with as much sarcasm as an eight-year-old girl could muster.

“Oh, stop, Sarah,” said their mother in a reprimanding tone. “Listen, you two,” she whispered, pulling Davey and his sister aside before they could go into the venue. “This is the happiest day of their lives. You hear me?”

They both nodded.

“And if you don’t stop acting like this you’ll be intruding on their happy day. So I need you to be nice about it. Understand?”

“Yes, momma,” Davey said, feeling guilty. He didn’t want the bride and groom to be sad… and he guessed that, in the grand scheme of things, he wasn’t having a bad day.

“Okay, let’s go inside,” she said, satisfied with her children. “And don’t make too much noise during the ceremony.”

The groom stood at the altar with a nervous, excited smile on his thin face. Sculpted to perfection, his hair sat on his head perfectly with an air of elegance. A white suit fit his tall bony frame well, and a pink rose was pinned to the lapel.

“Oh, Hugo looks so handsome,” Davey heard his mother murmur to his father.

“Yes, John’s a lucky man,” Mayer replied with a smile. “They’ll do wonderfully together.”

Before Davey could ask what this meant, the music swelled and everyone stood. Davey and Sarah were rushed to their feet as well, and everyone was craning their necks toward the back of the room.

A large man in military clothing was walking arm-in-arm with another, rather short man wearing a black suit. The suit the short man wore had rainbow paint splatters artfully splashed across it, the colours standing out against the black fabric. Tears streamed from the military man’s eyes as he hugged the short man and left him standing across from Hugo.

“Dearly beloved,” the officiator began. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of Hugo Smith and John Samuels. I understand you have prepared your own vows?”

The men spoke to each other in turn, saying things Davey knew were meaningful but couldn’t decipher. After both of them were finished speaking, the officiator smiled warmly and talked a little longer.

“I now pronounce you husbands, partners in life as long as you may choose and as long as you love one another,” the officiator said, prompting the two men to kiss. This was met with thunderous applause, and Davey saw his mother dry her eyes.

Confused, Davey applauded too. He didn’t understand – he’d never heard of two men marrying each other. Quietly, he wondered if he would marry a man one day or if he would marry a woman. Either way, Davey was a little excited about the prospect of having, as his mother had explained it to him, a best friend that he loved very much, but he wasn’t sure he wanted a stuffy kind of ceremony like this.

“I didn’t know people could marry each other like that,” Sarah whispered to Davey and Jack later on at the reception.

“Me either,” Jack said, fidgeting with his tie. “But I think it’s cool.”

“Cool?”

“Yeah. They love each other a lot, I can tell,” Jack confirmed with a nod of his head. “They’s happy.”

“Think you’re gonna marry a man, Davey?” Sarah asked while tugging at the hem of her dress.

“Dunno,” he said truthfully. “I don’t want to get married, really, I just want to love. I guess it just depends.”

“On what?” Jack questioned absently, staring at the cake that had just been wheeled into the room.

“On the person.”

“So…” Sarah looked confused. “You’re just gonna fall in love one day with just anybody?”

“Not just anybody,” he corrected, already hardly thinking about the conversation. “Somebody nice.”

**MARCH 2018**

“What do we do, then?” Jack wondered aloud with a small, blushing smile.

Davey snapped out of the memory of the wedding in 2010 and was brought back to reality by Jack’s dark cider-coloured eyes. “I… I want to kiss you,” he breathed.

“Up here, on this tree?”

“Yup. Right here.” Davey put his hand on Jack’s cheek and kissed him. The first time was soft and fast, almost like the kiss at the cast party. The second time was stronger, more passionate, and they kept getting better with each one.


	8. The Ravenclaw Sweater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davey has some questions to answer...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this is the second-last chapter! I might do a Kath/Sarah spinoff of this same AU if you guys want, just because I love my idea of punk!Sarah that I introduced in this chapter... it almost seems bittersweet, setting up for the final chapter. I hope you like it!

**APRIL 2018**

Davey’s eyes had been fixed on his laptop for he didn’t even know how long. Spring exams were coming up, and he had started studying at about six p.m. Looking at the digital clock across the room, he saw that three hours had gone by. How strange – it had only been thirty minutes, hadn’t it? Rubbing his eyes, he stood and stretched his legs.

“You don’t tell me things.”

He turned to see the door to his room hanging open, with his sister Sarah standing in the frame. It had been a long time since Davey and Sarah looked alike, and with Sarah’s dyed pink hair and round glasses, they looked like cousins at most.

“What do you mean?” Davey asked, tilting his head to the side, brain still foggy from studying.

“You didn’t tell me about Jack!” Sarah exclaimed.

“What? How do you know that’s true?”

“Twin-tuition, brother dear,” Sarah said sarcastically, regarding him from behind her glasses.

Davey rolled his eyes. “No, really, Saz, what makes you think we’re together?”

Sarah snorted and pulled out her phone, tapping around on it until she found what she wanted. She shoved her phone screen in his face, and it was open to Davey’s Instagram page. The most recent picture was one of him and Jack. Davey’s mind raced to try and find a cover; he and Jack had agreed to keep it on the down-low for a while.

“What, friends can’t take pictures?” he scrambled, heart racing. He was out to Sarah and the rest of his family, but for some reason he didn’t want her to find out.

“It’s not the picture itself,” she continued, “it’s Jack’s comment. Three heart emojis.”

“ _So?_ I think you’re reading too much into it.”

“Three _red_ heart emojis,” Sarah said with the air of Sherlock Holmes solving a case. “You’re dating,” she concluded with a confident grin.

“Fine,” Davey sighed, plopping back down at his desk. “You got me. But we’ll call it payback for the time you lied to me about Kath.”

“Hah! I knew it!” Sarah did a little happy dance around Davey’s room for a while before falling onto his made bed. She kicked off her Doc Martens and dangled her colourful sock feet off the edge of the bedstead, facing Davey at his desk. “You’re now legally obliged to tell me everything.”

“Legally?” he muttered, turning back to his work. “I don’t know about that.”

Sarah shut Davey’s laptop, nearly slamming his fingers in the process. “Rule number one of having a twin. Tell them when shit happens!”

“You’re being exceptionally annoying today, Sazzy,” he remarked. “But, yeah… to be honest, I’ve been wanting to tell _someone_.” He smiled just thinking about Jack. “I told him I liked him back in March,” Davey began, “and then… well, you know.”

“So where’s the picture from?”

Davey and Jack had found out through Charlie that there was a drive-in theatre about an hour from their neighbourhood. At Davey’s suggestion, they’d taken Jack’s old, beat up car all the way to the town where the drive-in was. He remembered the smell of popcorn and cotton candy, the sight of a hundred cars parked in lines lay engraved in his mind, the way the screen had lit up once the sun had set. He also recalled the way Jack has tasted, like movie popcorn and berry lip balm.

“It’s from the drive-in. You know, the one in Crawford?”

“Aww, you went there?” Sarah grinned, clapping her hands together a few times. “Kath and I went there for our fourth date!”

“God, how long ago _was_ that?” It must have been freshman year that Sarah and Katherine had gotten together.

“Two and a half years,” Sarah answered. “But we don’t count the part in between where we took a break. So we’ve been dating a year and some.”

“Whoa, imagine lasting that long in a relationship,” Davey joked, “couldn’t be me.”

“It _will_ be,” Sarah told him. “I see how you look at Jack. I know how he looks at you.”

“Do you want to go to the game?” Jack asked Davey.

The two of them sat in the library after school, Davey writing and Jack doodling on his math homework. Davey finished the sentence and looked up from his computer at Jack.

“We don’t usually do games,” Davey said, “what makes you wanna go this time?”

“I dunno,” Jack whispered, lowering his voice and shooting a glance around the mostly-empty library. “It just feels like something _boyfriends_ do.”

And there it was. Davey’s heart sputtered to a stop, the word _boyfriend_ echoing through his entire body. He knew he liked Jack, he knew that the word could _technically_ be applied to the two of them, and it certainly felt like a more comfortable label than it had when he was with Noah, but to have his long-time crush and now-boyfriend call him that? Davey felt almost euphoric, but in a nervous sort of way.

“Cat got ya tongue?” Jack teased with a grin.

“I… sort of, actually,” Davey laughed, raking a hand through his hair. “But yeah,” he decided, “let’s do it.”

“Great. Then, it’s a date.”

Davey was so happy and flustered for the rest of the afternoon that he didn’t notice until eleven p.m. that Jack had been quoting The Office.

**APRIL 2018 – THE GAME**

“I’m freezing.”

“You should have brought a jacket!”

“It’s April, Davey!” They both had to yell over the noise of the crowd. “I shouldn’t _need_ a jacket! Can I have your sweatshirt?”

Reluctantly, Davey took off his jean jacket that he wore over his sweatshirt and pulled the sweatshirt over his head. He’d had the Ravenclaw sweater since freshman year, and it somehow still fit him – it must have been massive on him when he bought it. It fit Jack a little big around the shoulders and it was a little bit longer than a sweater that fit would be.

Jack’s cheeks were slightly pink and rosy in the chilly spring air, giving his face a more alive look, especially when he smiled. The hood of the Ravenclaw sweatshirt brushed against the bottoms of his ears, and the dark blue wool complimented the coffee-brown of Jack’s hair.

As the night went on, it got somehow colder, dropping down into what Davey guessed were the lower fifties. He shivered in only his jean jacket and T-shirt.

“Oh, do you want it back?” Jack asked, noticing Davey moving closer to him on the bench for warmth. Nobody at the school knew they were dating yet (save for Sarah), so under other circumstances it would have been risky, but through all of the bleachers, groups of friends were huddling together.

“N-no, it’s f-fine,” Davey shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself.

“You’re ridiculous,” Jack said with a small smile, putting an arm around Davey before taking it back suddenly. “Is… I mean, is that okay?”

Davey was surprised that Jack asked, but glad he did all the same. “Yes, it’s okay,” he answered. He put his own arm around Jack.

There was something so unequivocally _high school_ about sitting at the football game with your boyfriend, freezing your asses off on metal bleachers while you followed along with loud, annoying chants led by the cheerleaders. He was almost sad in that moment when he realized high school would be over soon. Just one more year until he’d be off to college.

 _The American anomaly_ , Davey thought wistfully. _Where else do you get this exact combination of things that’re just so…_ _the way they are?_ On any other day, he could have spent hours theorizing and thinking about this question; he tended to lose himself in thought more often than he liked to admit. But before he could think any more about it, their team scored a touchdown.

Crowds roared, the marching band played, cheerleaders flipped…

And Jack Kelly kissed him in front of the whole school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you think I should do a Katherine/Sarah spinoff in the same universe? Should it be in the same style? Let me know!!


	9. Stretching Roads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The finale...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for not ending this sooner. To be honest, I didn't want it to end. This is the longest fic I've ever written and I wanted to keep it going, even if it meant keeping the readers waiting.

**JUNE 2018**

“I’m scared.”

“Yeah? What for?”

“Life,” Davey admitted with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he always did when anxious.

In Jack’s living room, the only source of light from _The Breakfast Club_ playing on the TV, Davey watched his boyfriend’s brows knit together. The lines of Jack’s face were strange and dramatic in the dim glow of the television, making his jaw look squarer and his dimples deeper.

“I’m not,” Jack said finally, eyes leaving the screen and darting around the room for a moment before landing on Davey. He put an arm around his torso in as much of a hug it could be when they were both sitting on the sofa. “Know why?”

“No, why?” Davey smiled and put his own arm around Jack.

“’Cause here I am, right now. And if things can be good now, they can be good again, you know?”

There was a beat of silence.

“Did that not make sense?” Jack asked, “I’m sorry, I—”

“No, no, I understand,” Davey said, turning his eyes back to the screen with a small smile. God, he loved Jack — that wasn’t a new thought, or a surprising one — but it did help him stay grounded.

For about thirty minutes, there was nothing but comfortable silence. The only sounds, ones that Davey could hear though he was not listening at all, were the air conditioner, the movie, and Jack’s gentle breathing beside him. He had fallen into a sort of half-sleep when he heard his phone begin to ring. Lifting his head, he looked around the dark living room, trying to find the ringing phone. Jack looked too, finally finding Davey’s cell phone buried between two couch cushions. An unknown number blinked at him on the screen, and he answered, pausing the movie at the same time.

“Hello?”

“ _Hello, Davey Jacobs?”_

“Speaking.” He wondered who was calling him at seven p.m. on a Thursday evening?

“ _Yes, then you’re our last call of the day_ ,” the voice on the other end said. “ _My name is Billie Jordan, I’m a representative for the University of Toronto._ ”

Ah. Make or break, he supposed – U of T was his dream school. He had backups, but he needed this call to go well. It _would_ go well, right?

Jack, who could hear what the man was saying through the other end of the phone, grabbed Davey’s shoulder excitedly. Doing his best not to sound _too_ excited, Davey said, “oh, hello.”

“ _If my data is correct, you applied to our English program last fall…_ ”

“I did.”

“ _The University of Toronto is pleased to accept you to this program. You can expect a formal document in the mail between three to five business days._ ”

Davey’s mouth fell open. He’d… holy shit.

“Th-thank you,” he stuttered, wide-eyed.

“ _More instructions for application finalization will be enclosed in the letter. Have a good evening._ ”

“Uh, you too.”

Davey hung up and took two long, deep breaths, in and out, focusing on the air filling and leaving his lungs. He closed his eyes and let his mind be full for a moment, reveling in the happy, unstressed mess that flowed through his brain. It was a rare occasion, for Davey to feel busy and yet at peace, and so he sat in the feeling without speaking.

“Are you scared now?” Jack asked quietly. He’d paused the movie at some point while Davey had been on the phone, and his hands, folded in his lap, fidgeted while waiting for Davey’s reply.

“Who cares about scared?” Davey cried, throwing his arms around Jack and burying his face in his shoulder. “Fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream, Jackie, and if I’m dreaming don’t _ever_ wake me up.”

Their little lunch table, the one Davey had sat at for the last four years, was packed to the brim with all of his friends. He knew every inch of that table; from the stain where Albert had spilled purple Gatorade on the white wood when they were sophomores to the knife-etched lettering carved underneath that read _Race is a catboy_. It almost felt like home. It felt even more like home as he watched Katherine pull a huge chocolate sheet cake from under her seat, candles unlit after the traumatizing “near-death experience” on Finch’s sixteenth (sparkler candles that had sparkled just a little _too_ much. Needless to say they were not allowed around matches anymore.)

“Y’all know the rules,” Katherine said, the Southern twang in her voice only the tiniest bit noticeable, if only by someone who had known her for six years. “You have to punch the birthday boy before you get a slice of cake. No exceptions, even for you, Davey.”

Everyone lined up next to Jack, who wore two birthday hats like bull’s horns on his head. They would punch him and then be handed a slice of cake by Katherine, who held a plastic cafeteria knife. Finally, Davey came to the front of the line.

“You’re really going to punch me?” Jack feigned offence, raising a hand to his chest as if clutching pearls. “After all we’ve been through?”

“I want cake, Jackie.”

“Fine,” Jack sighed, wiping away a nonexistent tear. “But make it quick.”

Leaving Jack wailing dramatically, Davey took his slice of cake and sat back down.

“Speaking of birthday gifts,” Jack started out of nowhere, energy now weird and fidgety – if Davey knew him well, and he hoped he did, Jack had something to tell them. “I, uh, got a letter the other day.”

“And?” Charlie asked, mainly focused on picking off each individual sprinkle from the cake.

“I applied to a bunch a’ different art colleges,” he continued, not touching his extra-big piece of cake. “And, well, I got into one.”

“Jack, that’s amazing!” Sarah exclaimed. “Which one?”

“OCAD. Ontario College of Art and Design.”

Davey was awestruck. What kind of twist of fate would put them in the same city? Had some god somewhere pulled strings, played things out so that Jack and Davey were in the same city, or was luck real? Luck was fickle, he remembered reading somewhere…

**AUGUST 2018**

“Charger?”

“Check.”

“Bank card?”

“Yup.” Davey rolled his eyes to hide the fact that he had, in fact, almost forgotten his card.

“Iron pills?”

“Mom, you don’t have to—”

“—actually, I do,” Davey’s mother cut off with a shake of her head. “Lord knows you’re forgetful.”

Davey sighed and zipped up his backpack. He stood from his bed, feet sore after walking Atticus the day before, and looked around his room. _Empty_ was not a word he would use to describe it — a few things had been left for when he would come home for the holidays — but something was definitely _missing_. The pale blue walls, stripped bare, made him feel an icy nostalgia for the years past. Hollows of the bookshelves, howling like seaside caves in their vacancy, sat void of content along the left wall.

Snapping out of his train of thought, Davey realized that his mother still stood there, looking at him.

“What?” he asked her, trying to read her expression.

“It’s just…” his mother covered her mouth a moment and paused. “I’m going to miss you, David.”

“I’m gonna miss you too, mom,” Davey said, feeling tears prick at his eyes. He walked a few steps across the room and hugged her, once again struck by just how much taller than her he was. They stood in the embrace for a few seconds longer before Davey pulled away.

“Well, be safe,” his mother laughed quietly, picking up one of the boxes and opening the door. “No drugs, and don’t get anyone pregnant.”

“Mom!”

The slam of the trunk rang in Davey’s ears for a moment after it was over. Jack’s driveway was so familiar to him; how many times had he walked across the cement? How many times had he seen it lit up for Christmas, or lit up by the moon? Too many to count, he thought as he hugged Jack’s mother and got into the passenger seat of Jack’s car.

With their parents waving goodbye, Jack put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. They drove through the neighbourhood in relative silence, only speaking when they passed a place they recognized, saying “aw, look, it’s Albert’s old house,” or, “remember when Race broke his hand outside that shop?” Both of them were too nervous to really talk about the weeks to come.

As they turned onto the highway, Davey saw the high school zip past the window, just slow enough so that he could catch the lettering on the side of the building. He craned his neck, keeping the brick building in his vision for as long as possible, before giving up and turning to face the windshield. Jack smiled at him, dimples growing. His dark hair had grown a little bit over the summer and now hung lower on his forehead, and he combed it out of the way and looked sidelong at Davey while keeping an eye on the road.

Davey took Jack’s hand and continued to stare out the front window, eyes on the ever-stretching highway in front of them. Where the road stopped, he didn’t know, but for once he felt comfort in his own uncertainty. He let out a sigh.

“Havin’ second thoughts?” Jack asked, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Nope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is so, so special to me, and if you've ever commented or given me kudos I want you to know that I love you <3\. Take care of yourselves and I'll see you on the next one.
> 
> -M

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! please comment with your feedback. I can't commit to an upload schedule but I can commit to listening to my readers and writing in the best way I know how. Catch me on Tumblr @panicky-pancakes


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